George Wallace's Daughter Votes for Obama

[JMDEM]

(CNN) -- At a modest stucco home in Montgomery, Alabama, an unlikely presidential victory celebration is taking place this morning.

Peggy Wallace Kennedy, the daughter of the late George Wallace, the Alabama governor who once vowed to maintain segregation forever, is rejoicing.

Kennedy, 58, voted for Sen. Barack Obama. She says she was "mesmerized" when she first heard him speak at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Her admiration for Obama deepened when she learned he opposed the Iraq war. She even slapped an Obama bumper sticker on her car, even though someone told her that the prospect of an African-American president would have her father "rolling over in his grave."

"I think Obama is going to be one of the best presidents we'll have," she says. "He's going to bring the freshness we need. We've just been bogged down so long. We need this shot in the arm."

President-elect Obama's victory Tuesday may be a racially transformative event. But for people like Kennedy, who came through the fires of the civil rights movement, it also represents something else -- personal triumph. Obama's win validates the risks they took years ago.

Some, like Kennedy and an entire generation of white Southerners, risked social rejection for renouncing the bigotry of their parents. Others risked their lives while leading civil rights campaigns in the Deep South. Some almost lost their belief in the inherent goodness of America because they saw so many innocent people die.

More at: http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/obama.history/index.html

[ben_meyers]

1. Dr. Alveda King,

director of African-American Outreach, Gospel of Life Ministries, a niece of Dr. Martin Luther King supported McCain.

http://www.thebulletin.us/site/index.cfm?newsid=20172908&BRD=2737&PAG=461&dept_id=576361&rfi=8

Maybe people are individuals and don't inherit their political leanings, ya think?



[BrklynLiberal]

7. I cannot think of one possible reason why she could possibly do that...

and millions of reasons why she shouldn't

[ben_meyers]

9. I dunno either, but reading some of the posts here lately

all I can conclude is that she is a racist and against gay marriage.

[Lux]

12. Funny

:)

When Dr. King was protesting at Planned Parenthood here, the protesting side and the patient support side consisted of both black and white people. I know that some of the white people who joined Dr. King are against gay marriage because they've told me so during past encounters. I have no idea where the others stand on the issue, nor would I venture a guess. Those of us on the patient support side, both black and white, likely support gay marriage.

[JMDEM]

16. I bet she's a fundie, and will vote based on the abortion issue alone. NT.

[Lux]

10. Dr. Alveda King

She was in Wichita protesting at Planned Parenthood. I was there doing patient support and she told us that Dr. King had never supported PP. He did and he received an award from PP thanking him for his support. It was my impression, maybe an unfair one, that she was a media hound. She didn't get much coverage here, and not very people came out to protest with her, surprising given the anti-choice sentiment here.

[MadMaddie]

11. I also think I read where she is a homophobe too...

We live a crazy country don't we?

[HopeFor2006]

2. Now there is an uplifting story.

:)

[BumRushDaShow]

3. ???

She even slapped an Obama bumper sticker on her car, even though someone told her that the prospect of an African-American president would have her father "rolling over in his grave."

Not to in any way make light of or support the horrors of her father's reign of terror in the south, but didn't he eventually repudiate all of that before he died? He had been rendered paralyzed by a would-be assassin if I'm not mistaken. So I don't know if he would have been "rolling over in his grave" upon Obama's election if he truly did, in his heart, repudiate the hate that he cultivated. Maybe that message didn't get through to that "someone" who spoke to his daughter.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. Dupe

[Tarheel_Dem]

5. And the good news just keeps on coming. Recommended.

:kick:

[Catch22Dem]

6. Wallace at the time of his death was not the same man he was earlier in life

At least I like to believe so. From every account I've read, he had a pretty sincere turnaround.

[BrklynLiberal]

8. I read that he started out pretty moderate, but he kept getting killed in elections

by the avid segregationists. He made a decision to veer to the right in order to have a political career....and the rest, as they say, is history.

[trof]

13. I can tell you the story. I was there.

Wallace ran against John Patterson for governor in 1958.
I was 17 and my mother and I worked for Patterson's campaign.

Wallace was actually a populist and, for the times, pretty fair and even handed in his dealings with blacks. He was a state judge.

Patterson ran a very racist campaign.
Almost all of us whites were pretty racist in Alabama back then.
We just didn't know it.
Anyway, Wallace ran at least a 'less' racist campaign than Patterson.
And that's why he thought he lost.
His famous and oft quoted statement following his defeat was "I'll never be out-niggered again."

And that appears to have driven his political career, at least until shortly before his death.

[Faygo Kid]

14. Before his death, Wallace recanted. I think he would have voted for Obama.

The George Wallace in a wheelchair had traveled a long journey from being Gov. George Wallace.

There is always hope for redemption. He found it.

[trof]

15. Wallace sure seemed to seek forgiveness and redemption at the end.

In his mind, he may have feared 'meeting his maker'.
I dunno.
But it seemed to be genuine.
I saw one clip of his visiting a black church as a very old man, in his wheelchair. He asked for their forgiveness and tears were streaming down his cheeks.

[BrklynLiberal]

18. Wow. Kind of sad. No one would ever have heard of him if he had maintained

his even-handedness..

Life sure is strange...

[Jack Rabbit]

17. There is a such thing as redemption, I suppose

[loyalsister]

19. From someone who knew......

"One of the most remarkable moments of the 1972 campaign came after Alabama Governor George Wallace, a foe of civil rights who also sought the party's presidential nomination that year, was shot. Wallace was shocked when Chisholm arrived in his hospital room to express her sympathy and concern. "He said, 'What are your people going to say?' I said, 'I know what they are going to say. But I wouldn't want what happened to you to happen to anyone.' He cried and cried," Chisholm recalled."

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?pid=2098

[DeepModem Mom]

20. K&R

[Zomby Woof]

21. Wallace came around late in his career

Not only did he apologize for his early stances against integration, but by the time he served his last term as governor of Alabama in the mid-80's, he had a record number of African Americans appointed to state government jobs.

He was re-elected to his final term in office with 90% of the African American vote.

These are inconvenient truths for the knee-jerk south-bashers of DU, who cling to the past even more than Wallace did himself. Sanctimony is a powerful drug.

Who is to say he wouldn't have voted for Obama himself? You really don't know, do you?